Real Estate

Lincoln Square expansion starts tomorrow

Kemper Development Co. is holding a groundbreaking event tomorrow for the Lincoln Square expansion  one month earlier than it had planned.

Last month the developer said it would break ground July 18. Utility work is already underway.

When complete in 2016, the second phase of Lincoln Square will have a 31-story, 700,000-square-foot office tower and a 41-story tower with a 250-room hotel and 250 apartments.

The expansion of Bellevue Square is set to begin about a year after the Lincoln Square project. Plans call for two 17-story towers on a three-story retail podium with five levels of underground parking at the southeast corner of the mall. There will be 240 apartments in the two towers and a 200-room hotel in the south tower.

The two expansions will add about 2 million square feet to Kemper Development’s Bellevue Collection at a cost of $1.2 billion.

Tomorrow’s groundbreaking event will be on the Lincoln Square expansion site, at Bellevue Way between Sixth and Fourth streets, at 10:30 a.m.